Hanson McClain’s 30-Minute New Account Opening Process

Digitizing Paper Applications and Client Onboarding

Hanson McClain is an independent investment advisory firm that provides financial consulting services to more than 4,000 households worldwide. Headquartered in Sacramento, CA, the firm has approximately $2 billion in assets under management.

To expedite client services, the firm sought out document management technology to automate its new account opening process. With paper applications, onboarding new clients meant the firm had to prepare stacks of paper forms and individually mail them between advisors, a client service representative (CSR), the firm’s cashiering department, the client and the custodian—a process that took 3-7 days and often delayed important client transactions.

“New account documents are extremely time sensitive. At times, we would have to interrupt advisors during meetings to get a signature,” says Director of IT Barry Chapman II. “We were looking for a paperless system with efficient workflow, SEC and FINRA compliance and a strong integration capability.”

After a demonstration of Laserfiche software, Chapman decided that Laserfiche’s configurable workflow tools could easily address the firm’s operational needs.

New Account Opening in 30 Minutes

Chapman and his team automated the account opening process by integrating Laserfiche document management software with DocuSign, its Tamarac CRM system and Laser App. By interlinking these systems, client paperwork can be reviewed, signed and finalized in under half an hour:

Laserfiche pulls the new client contact record from Tamarac CRM and routes it to Laser App.

Laserfiche facilities new client information transfers between the CRM system and Laser App.

Laser App automatically populates an electronic form with the client’s account information.

Automating form filling eliminates manual paperwork.

The system automatically identifies who should receive the form next and routes it to the CSR for review.

The applicable advisors electronically sign the form using DocuSign.

The custodian and client each receive a copy of the form for final sign-off.

Compared to the old system, this new process has generated a week in time savings. The process is not only quick, but ensures personnel accountability from start to finish.

“If a document that requires review sits for more than 24 hours, the system emails a reminder to the responsible person,” says Chapman. “If the same document sits for more than 72 hours, the system emails that person’s boss.”

Creating Comprehensive SEC and FINRA Compliance

Improving operations was only part of Hanson McClain’s information management overhaul. The firm also needed comprehensive compliance functionality to meet the strict standards of its industry.

“The SEC and FINRA require that firms use a certain type of document management technology, such as unalterable database software,” says Chapman. “Our research showed that Laserfiche’s technology is not only the most flexible, but also offers the option to use numerous add-on features.”

One feature that simplifies audit preparation is Laserfiche’s event log capability, which tracks the creation, deletion and modification of documents.

“Our system logs every possible interaction with a document,” says Chapman. “Even if a document is deleted, it is still available in the Laserfiche repository and we can see who modified it.”

The firm’s DocuSign integration also verifies the identity of a document’s signer. Detailed security questions, social security verification and access code protection maintain the integrity of client transactions and prevent fraud.

“It’s pretty astounding when you consider the time savings,” say Chapman. “We estimate that Laserfiche saves us up to one hour per document.”Given the firm’s estimated average of 165 documents processed per day, Laserfiche produces an annual time savings of roughly 41,415 hours.